Theresa May’s record as Home Secretary is alarming, not reassuring

Despite David Cameron’s experience as a marketing man, his skills at reputation management were feeble compared to those of Theresa May. May was not a terrible Home Secretary but she was not a good one, still less an outstanding one.

Yes, she remained in office for six years. But longevity in office is hardly proof of success, even at the Home Office. Anyone who has worked in a large organisation has encountered long-serving, apparently unfireable incompetents, and one thing that the history of the Cameron administration surely proves is that being bad at your job rarely leads to losing that job.

Some kind of strange magic has prompted pundits and analysts to forget all the misfortunes and scandals of her tenure. Now seems a good time to remember them, and to consider the type of leadership style that they suggest.

To begin with there was the outcry over a relaxation of border checks on non-EU nationals that came about because of ‘unauthorised actions’ by a head of the Border Force who took a sensible pilot scheme too far.